Dear Jess,
I loved your post about the Teal Pumpkin Project. I had never heard of putting out a teal pumpkin before to symbolize being an allergy-free house during trick-or-treat. I’m so glad you made me aware. If you’re feeling exhausted a few states away, I’m sure there are parents in my neighborhood who are feeling the same way.
So this week, I hauled my crabby toddler and baby to the craft store and bought a carve-able pumpkin and teal paint. In the check out line, I was chatting to the woman behind me about the coupons available, when she noticed my purchases.
“Are you making a blue allergy-free pumpkin?”
“Yes, I am,” I say.
“Did you know they’re selling teal ones at Home Goods? I wonder why they don’t have them here.”
“I’m not sure. But this way my toddler can help me paint it and learn more about why we’re putting out this blue pumpkin,” I said, sounding like I knew what I was doing. In reality, there was just no way I was heading to another store when I had already invested the time and emotional suffering of taking my cranky toddler to this craft store.
A Lesson in Empathy
Once we got home and got our paint set-up ready to go, I figured I might as well commit to my lesson. Don’t want to let down a complete stranger, ya know?
My toddler asks a lot of questions. Like A LOT. It shouldn’t be humanly possible to ask as many questions as he comes up with. Most of them are “Why?” questions but he’s also been getting creative with them recently. I knew how I would explain the concept of the teal pumpkin to him, but answering his questions as thoroughly as possible was what he needed to fully understand what we were doing. Here were some of his questions:
Q: Can we use more colors to paint the pumpkin?
A: No, this pumpkin is special. It’s to tell everyone who is trick-or-treating that we won’t be handing out things that make kids have allergies.
Q: What if we don’t have a blue pumpkin?
A: Then kids with allergies won’t have as much fun on Halloween because they might get sick from things like peanuts.
Q: Like William! And Uncle Kevin! And David! If they eat peanuts, will they be very sick and have to go to the hospital?
A: They might. That’s why it’s important to paint this pumpkin to let everyone know that our house is safe.
We have quite a few pumpkins at our house right now in preparation for some of my fall photoshoots. His favorite one by far is the teal one. The next morning, the first thing he did was show his dad the painted pumpkin. “Look Dad! This means our house is safe from peanuts!”
… close enough.
Finding a Tribe
We say this to each other and to our Fraternity a lot: It takes a village. As a mom who doesn’t have to worry about the all the foods my kids consume causing a deadly reaction, I appreciate projects like the Teal Pumpkin Project because it gives me better idea of what other people may be struggling with and a way to help. We have to find our tribe, a group of people who will be there to support us when we need it. But we can also try to be the support someone else needs too.
I hope my lesson to think about others first, has stuck with my toddler. Maybe not, but at least he’s aware of allergies and that our “safe house” will be handing out slap bracelets and other dollar store goodies.
Love,
Tracy
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